This handbook not only provides a very wide-ranging introduction and orientation to the world of the Theatre of the Oppressed, but Birgit Fritz also presents concrete and practical assistance for structuring basic workshops in process-oriented theatre work and in developing Forum Theatre plays. Birgit Fritz explores the working principles of emancipatory theatre work and somatic learning in depth. She gives numerous examples of the work and life of theatre groups and reveals fascinating possibilities of how theatre for social change can be successfully linked with social and political commitment, so that artistic process can bring about cross-generational collaboration, develop social democracy, and operate as an active force for peace.
A companion publication to the international exhibition "Transcending Tradition: Jewish Mathematicians in German-Speaking Academic Culture", the catalogue explores the working lives and activities of Jewish mathematicians in German-speaking countries during the period between the legal and political emancipation of the Jews in the 19th century and their persecution in Nazi Germany. It highlights the important role Jewish mathematicians played in all areas of mathematical culture during the Wilhelmine Empire and the Weimar Republic, and recalls their emigration, flight or death after 1933.
This book explores silence and memory in Germany's ongoing discourse about the Nazi past. It examines the ways in which exile literature and critical thought by Anna Seghers joins postwar discourse and current historical research to formulate an acceptable memory of private life during the Third Reich. Seghers' work is particularly relevant in light of a postwar rift between private and public memory discourse. Her texts, The Seventh Cross, The Excursion of the Dead Girls, and especially her depictions of female figures offer a rare in-depth examination of ordinary life under Hitler. From exile, Seghers reveals hidden voices and personal experience with the Nazi regime that linger in the silenced voids of history. Silence and Acts of Memory reconnects private and public discourse about traumatic events of the Nazi past; the book contributes valuable insights to the current discourse about the continuing formative process of German national identity. Birgit Maier-Katkin is an Associate Professor of German at the Florida State University.
This study explores the concept of Stimmung in literary and philosophical texts of the modern age. Signifying both 'mood' and 'attunement', Stimmung speaks to the categories of affective experience and aesthetic design alike. The study locates itself in the nexus between discourses on modernity, existentialism and aesthetics and uncovers the pivotal role of Stimmung in 19th- and 20th-century European narrative fiction and continental philosophy. The study first explores the philosophical and aesthetic origins and implications of Stimmung to, then, discuss its role in the narrative fiction of three key authors of modern literature: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard. These readings demonstrate a significant shift towards an aesthetic of affective intensity and immediacy, in which the experience of the reading process takes centre stage as each author develops an aesthetic philosophy of Stimmung in their own right. Through its focus on the concept of Stimmung, the study thus unearths a fundamental link between existentialist concerns and narrative practice in modern literature.
First published to wide acclaim in Sweden (1995) and in Germany (1997), the autobiography of opera legend Birgit Nilsson (1918-2005) is finally available in an English translation. From her humble roots in rural Sweden to her artistic triumphs in Stockholm, Bayreuth, Milan, and the Metropolitan Opera House, this candid and utterly charming memoir reveals the personality behind one of the great voices of the past century. Gracefully weaving together the private and professional, Nilsson chronicles her idyllic childhood in Vastra Karup, the early recognition of her unique natural abilities, and her first tentative steps into a wider artistic world. After achieving national acclaim in Verdi's Lady Macbeth, she went on to establish herself as the dominant Wagnerian soprano of her generation, appearing at the Bayreuth and Munich Festivals, and the Vienna and Bavarian State Opera Houses, creating, along the way, definitive performances of Sieglinde, Brnnhilde, and Isolde. The book details her rise to international stardom with behind-the-scenes recollections of her phenomenal triumph as Turandot at La Scala in 1958 and her headline-making Met premier in Tristan und Isolde the following year. Nilsson's long and illustrious career (she performed until 1984), her celebrated professional and personal relationships, her friendships and rivalries, are all recounted with a down-to-earth wit and an engagingly odd admixture of ego and selfeffacement. She tells it all: the legendary quips, the often prickly relationships with Met impresario Rudolph Bing and conductor von Karajan, the infamous story of the stalker "Miss N," and the touchingly rendered relationship with her beloved husband, Bertil Niklasson. What emerges from these pages is a diva in the old mold: a giant voice matched by an oversize personality, a professional who expected the same level of perfection from others that she demanded of herself, and a woman who loved and lived life with joy and good humor . . . and oh, that voice. Includes 56 photographs and a discography.
The contemporaries of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) openly acknowledged his towering importance. Both Fichte and Hegel praised him in the same breath with Kant as having launched the philosophical revolution they sought to complete. Yet for more than a century, misrepresentations of Jacobi's thought have stood in the way of a proper appreciation of his insights. In her study of this long-neglected German philosopher, internationally-renowned Jacobi expert Birgit Sandkaulen interprets his philosophical writings in their intellectual context. Originally published in German and translated into English for the first time, this is a major contribution to reading the life, work, and legacy of Jacobi. The biographical chapter on Jacobi's life as a public intellectual was written specifically for this English edition. Offering new perspectives on Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, Sandkaulen focuses on Jacobi's specific conception of practical realism. This conception, the source of Jacobi's famous defense of faith and human freedom, matches his critique of the German Idealists: the post-Kantian systems of German Idealism were bound to fail. Sandkaulen shows us that long before 20th-century philosophers took up this line of thought, indeed at the very origin of the epoch-making developments of classical German philosophy, Jacobi articulated a practical, ethical, personal realism that is as philosophically appealing and relevant today as it was in its time.
This is the first book to deal exclusively with Russian cinema of the 1990s. It introduces readers to the currents and common interests of contemporary Russian cinema, offers close studies of the work of filmmakers like Sokurov, Muratova and Astrakhan, reviews the Russian film industry in a period of massive economic transformation, and assesses cinema's function as a definer of Russia's new identity.
By the end of World War I, Albert Einstein had become the face of the new science of theoretical physics and had made some powerful enemies. One of those enemies, Nobel Prize winner Philipp Lenard, spent a career trying to discredit him. Their story of conflict, pitting Germany’s most widely celebrated Jew against the Nazi scientist who was to become Hitler’s chief advisor on physics, had an impact far exceeding what the scientific community felt at the time. Indeed, their mutual antagonism affected the direction of science long after 1933, when Einstein took flight to America and changed the history of two nations. The Man Who Stalked Einstein details the tense relationship between Einstein and Lenard, their ideas and actions, during the eventful period between World War I and World War II.
Hitherto, the three symmetric coordination types Phrasal Coordination, Right Node Raising, and Gapping have been mostly treated in isolation. This book presents a successful attempt at developing a uniform approach - couched in a transformational framework, but also applicable to other grammatical approaches. But the account not only provides a common frame for coordination. In effect, it does away with the strict distinction between simplex and coordinate structures. The proposed approach - based on a natural extension to the classical X-scheme - is equally valid for both simplex and coordinate structures, and, thus, it presents a significant contribution to grammars of phrasal structures in general.
Dissecting the radical impact of Walter Benjamin on contemporary cultural, postcolonial and translation theory, this book investigates the translation and reception of Benjamin's most famous text about translation, The Task of the Translator, in English language debates around 'cultural translation'. For years now, there has been a pronounced interest in translation throughout the Humanities, which has come with an increasing detachment of translation from linguistic-textual parameters. It has generated a broad spectrum of discussions subsumed under the heading of 'cultural translation', a concept that is constantly re-invented and manifests in often heavily diverging expressions. However, there seems to be a distinct constant: In their own (re-)formulations of this concept, a remarkable number of scholars-Bhabha, Chow, Niranjana, to name but a few-explicitly refer to Walter Benjamin's The Task of the Translator. In its first part, this book considers Benjamin and the way in which he thought about, theorized and practiced translation throughout his writings. In a second part, Walter Benjamin meets 'cultural translation': tracing various paths of translation and reception, this part also tackles the issues and debates that result from the omnipresence of Walter Benjamin in contemporary theories and discussions of 'cultural translation'. The result is a clearer picture of the translation and reception processes that have generated the immense impact of Benjamin on contemporary cultural theory, as well as new perspectives for a way of reading that re-shapes the canonized texts themselves and holds the potential of disturbing, shifting and enriching their more 'traditional' readings.
This book examines the UK prime minister’s political leadership in the domestic executive. By offering a comparative study of the political leadership of James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair with regard to European monetary policy, it challenges the thesis that British prime ministers today have more power, resources and autonomy than their predecessors, giving them a greater capacity to act. Taking key European monetary policy decisions by the British government between 1976 and 2007 as empirical cases, the book assesses the extent to which the political leadership of each prime minister was affected by the cabinet, the parliamentary party as well as the media, and the extent to which he or she was able to manage these factors. It becomes clear from this analysis that prime ministerial predominance is not as frequent as suggested, while collective leadership does not represent a return to cabinet government. Moreover, particularly the party in government affects the prime minister’s leadership by shaping his or her options on appointments (and therefore the composition of the core executive), and through its behaviour in parliament, e.g. through rebellions or the threat of them.
This fully revised translation of the world-renowned German edition covers the complete and modern knowledge of plant biochemistry. The book presents the topic in a concise and simplified manner so that students can digest the message and gain a basic knowledge of the entire field of plant biochemistry, from photosynthesis (the synthesis of natural plant products) to all kinds of genetic engineering with its many commercial applications. Topics include cell structure and function, lipid and polysaccharide metabolism, nitrogen fixation, phloem transport, synthesis and function of isoprenoids, phenylpropanoids and other secondary metabolites, plant growth regulation and development. Heldt provides a comprehensive description of photosynthesis, primary and secondary metabolism, the function of phytohormones and molecular engineering. The text covers research findings until the end of 2003 and identifies areas of future research. There are extensive references to the most recent scientific literature. * Illustrated with two-color diagrams and well designed metabolic schemes * Plant metabolism presented in the context of the structure and function of the plant * Many examples of commercial applications for the protection and quality improvement of harvest crops, plant breeding, and the production of raw materials for industrial use * Coverage of the latest research findings
Recently, policy debate and comparative research on old-age pensions have focused on the financial sustainability of pension systems in the face of demographic change. This study, however, also takes into account distributional effects involved in pension system structures. Theoretical, institutional and empirical analyses are combined to form a comprehensive framework for evaluating financial sustainability and distributional effects of the pension systems implemented in Germany and the United Kingdom. Along with projections of demographic trends and future public pension expenditure, the empirical results on old-age incomes and their distribution allow for identifying a number of reform options for each pension system to improve their financial or distributional results.
Governing Affects explores the neoliberal transformation of state governance in Europe towards affective forms of dominance exercised by customer-oriented neo-bureaucracies and public service providers. By investigating the rise of affective labour in contemporary European service societies and the conversion of state administrations into business-like public services, the authors trace the transformative power of neoliberal political thought as it is put into practice. The book examines new affective modes of subjectivation and activation of public employees, as well as their embodiment of affective requirements, to successfully guide and advise citizens. Neoliberalism induces a double agency in neo-bureaucrats: entrepreneurialism is coupled with affective skills for the purpose of governing clients in their own best interests. These competences are unevenly distributed between the genders, as their affective dispositions differ historically. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of Foucault and Bourdieu, the book offers innovative insights into recent processes of state transformation, affective subjectivation, and changes in labour relations. By combining theory building on governance with empirical research in key areas of state power, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in a broad range of disciplines, including political science, political sociology, and critical governance studies.
In Translating the World, Birgit Tautz provides a new narrative of German literary history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Departing from dominant modes of thought regarding the nexus of literary and national imagination, she examines this intersection through the lens of Germany’s emerging global networks and how they were rendered in two very different German cities: Hamburg and Weimar. German literary history has tended to employ a conceptual framework that emphasizes the nation or idealized citizenry, yet the experiences of readers in eighteenth-century German cities existed within the context of their local environments, in which daily life occurred and writers such as Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe worked. Hamburg, a flourishing literary city in the late eighteenth century, was eventually relegated to the margins of German historiography, while Weimar, then a small town with an insular worldview, would become mythologized for not only its literary history but its centrality in national German culture. By interrogating the histories of and texts associated with these cities, Tautz shows how literary styles and genres are born of local, rather than national, interaction with the world. Her examination of how texts intersect and interact reveals how they shape and transform the urban cultural landscape as they are translated and move throughout the world. A fresh, elegant exploration of literary translation, discursive shifts, and global cultural changes, Translating the World is an exciting new story of eighteenth-century German culture and its relationship to expanding global networks that will especially interest scholars of comparative literature, German studies, and literary history.
This study outlines the emerging cultural turn in Peace Studies and provides a critical understanding of the cultural dimension of reconciliation. Taking an anthropological view on decentralization and peacebuilding in Indonesia, it sets new standards for an interdisciplinary research field.
Tracing the rise and development of the Ghanaian video film industry between 1985 and 2010, Sensational Movies examines video movies as seismographic devices recording a culture and society in turmoil. This book captures the dynamic process of popular filmmaking in Ghana as a new medium for the imagination and tracks the interlacing of the medium’s technological, economic, social, cultural, and religious aspects. Stepping into the void left by the defunct state film industry, video movies negotiate the imaginaries deployed by state cinema on the one hand and Christianity on the other. Birgit Meyer analyzes Ghanaian video as a powerful, sensational form. Colliding with the state film industry’s representations of culture, these movies are indebted to religious notions of divination and revelation. Exploring the format of “film as revelation,” Meyer unpacks the affinity between cinematic and popular Christian modes of looking and showcases the transgressive potential haunting figurations of the occult. In this brilliant study, Meyer offers a deep, conceptually innovative analysis of the role of visual culture within the politics and aesthetics of religious world making.
Strategic Information Management In Hospitals: An Introduction To Hospital Information Systems is a definitive volume written by four authoritative voices in medical informatics. Illustrating the importance of hospital information management in delivering high quality health care at the lowest possible cost, this book provides the essential resources needed by the medical informatics specialist to understand and successfully manage the complex nature of hospital information systems. Author of the book's Foreword, Reed M. Gardner, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Medical Informatics, University of Utah and LDS Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah, applauds the text's focus on the underlying administrative systems that are in place in hospitals throughout the world. He writes, "These administrative systems are fundamental to the development and implementation of the even more challenging systems that acquire, process, and manage the patient's clinical information. Hospital information systems provide a major part of the information needed by those paying for health care." Chapter highlights include: significance of information processing in hospitals; information systems and their components; health information systems; architectures of hospital information systems; and organizational structures for information management.
This refreshing volume introduces a theory for explaining cross-national differences in the social practice of women (and men) in the areas of family and employment. This provides a theoretical framework for the ensuing comprehensive cross-national analysis of the degree and forms of labour market integration of women in three European countries - Finland, West Germany and the Netherlands - from the 1950s until 2000. Cross-national differences are explained with a focus on cultural change and the development of welfare state, labour markets, the family and social movements. It is evident that change took place along different development paths that were based on deep-rooted historical differences in the cultural ideals of the family. Such historical differences and their explanations also form part of the analysis. The results of this survey contribute to the further development of cross-national sociology on social change, social and gender inequality, welfare state, labour markets and family structures.
In addition to established playwrights such as Heinar Kipphardt, Franz Xaver Kroetz, and Heiner Muller, the book looks at the younger generation of playwrights not yet fully taken into account by research: writers such as Oliver Bukowski, Dea Loher, Marius von Mayenburg, Albert Ostermaier, and Theresia Walser. It gives an overview of the most important developments in recent German political drama through analysis of more than forty contemporary plays, clearly tracing connections between politics and theater. Each chapter is preceded by a short introduction into the respective political topic, providing the framework for the study of drama as a political tool and making it easy for students to see the multiple ways in which plays respond to political change. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in drama and theater studies and German literature."--BOOK JACKET.
Analysis of the novellas of the German Romantic writer and composer, focusing on the issues of art and the artist. The German Romantic writer and composer E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) -- perhaps best known to the English-speaking world through his Nutcracker and through Jacques Offenbach's opera Tales of Hoffmann -- struggled toconvince his predominantly bourgeois public of the merits of art and literature. Not surprisingly, many of his most important novellas are bound up with the dilemmas of art and the challenges faced by the Romantic artist, and itis these Künstlernovellen that are the focus of this study. Birgit Röderargues that Hoffmann's artists are not simply individuals who create works of art, but rather figures through whom the author explores the predicamentof those who reject the conventional world of bourgeois reality and seek to assert the claims of the imagination in a world dominated by prosaic rationalism. Contrary to previous scholars however, Röder demonstrates that Hoffmann's novellas clearly warn against a view of art as an autonomous aesthetic realm cut off from the world of reality. This is particularly apparent in Röder's analysis of gender relations in Hoffmann's oeuvre -- especially the relationship between (male) artist and (female) muse -- which underlines the extent to which art, literature, and the imagination are inseparably bound up with the prevailing social reality. The novellas that are given extensive consideration are Das Fräulein von Scuderi, Der Sandmann, Die Jesuiterkirche in G., Die Fermate, Der Artushof, Don Juan, Das Sanctus, and Rat Krespel. Birgit Röder teaches German language and literature at the University of Reading, UK.
This book provides a self-contained introduction to the theory of infinite-dimensional systems theory and its applications to port-Hamiltonian systems. The textbook starts with elementary known results, then progresses smoothly to advanced topics in current research. Many physical systems can be formulated using a Hamiltonian framework, leading to models described by ordinary or partial differential equations. For the purpose of control and for the interconnection of two or more Hamiltonian systems it is essential to take into account this interaction with the environment. This book is the first textbook on infinite-dimensional port-Hamiltonian systems. An abstract functional analytical approach is combined with the physical approach to Hamiltonian systems. This combined approach leads to easily verifiable conditions for well-posedness and stability. The book is accessible to graduate engineers and mathematicians with a minimal background in functional analysis. Moreover, the theory is illustrated by many worked-out examples.
Slavery, both in its historical and modern forms, continues to be a matter of undiminished political and social relevance. This is mirrored by an increasing interest in scholarly research as well as by critical statements from within the field of contemporary art. The present volume is designed to bring together artists and scholars from various fields of study discussing trauma and visuality, or more precisely, memory and denial of traumatic history within visual discourses. The purpose of this project is to put the phenomenon of contemporary art production dealing with the issue of slavery into a wider, interdisciplinary and transcultural context. The book covers current case studies focusing on different media and including visual, literary and performative approaches of dealing with the history of slavery in West-African, American and European cultures.
The life-worlds and personal experiences of workers and employees in three enterprises in East Berlin at the moment of political and economic upheaval stand at the centre of the book. It sets out in 1989 at the moment of the fall of the Berlin Wall witnessing the confrontations with the market economy and examining the reinterpretations of the socialist past as the political and economic changes take place. Disenchantment with Market Economics captures a unique moment in history and unveils myths and promises of liberal market economy from the perspective of those who lived through the break down of the planned economy at their workplaces in East Berlin. While Western managers regarded the expansion of their businesses towards Eastern Europe as a civilising mission, the East German employees reacted with complex strategies of individual adaptation and resistance.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.